PS3 features lightning-fast Blu-ray playback and video sharing with the PSP

The PS3 is starting to look like a solid multimedia machine. Maybe we'll get …

Some people want the PS3 for games, some want a cheap Blu-ray player, other people want bragging rights. We know a lot about the gaming aspects of the system, but there is still a lot we're not sure of when it comes to its multimedia features. The Japanese press was able to spend some quality time playing with the PS3, and IGN.com happens to have the skinny on the translation. Okay, I know that's like third-party news, but there is some juicy stuff to share. Remember when we talked about how long it took the Panasonic Blu-ray player to get running?

Good news for those worried about the slow start-up times with current next generation optical disc players. The PS3 loads up a Blu-ray movie fast. Impress sampled the US version of Fifth Element (Japan won't take shipment of its first commercial Blu-ray movies until early November) and found that the PS3 took less than 10 seconds to start up the disc after it had been selected from the video section of the Cross Media Bar.

That's hot. It's good to know all that muscle is being used to make the Blu-ray playback as painless as possible. I'm starting to get a tingle in my consumer electronics... organ. Anyhow, the other detail they discuss is the fact the system can play video files from the hard drive, and in fact you can share video files between the PS3 and the PSP. That's really hot. I'm starting to get some clue that the PS3 may be a nice addition to my home theater.